Black and White
by DronesHappyAsWeAre
Summary: A collection of Deb/Dexter psychologically-centered drabbles or one-shots corresponding with the new episodes. (S7 Spoilers)
1. Could

_A/N: There are so many layers to what Deb is going through I just felt compelled to write this dark, somewhat abstract, piece in order to concisely express what I could. _

**Takes place the last night they both get a 'decent' sleep before Dexter moves out of Deb's place.**

**...**

* * *

**...**

_I can't fucking breathe._

_I can't._

The plastic wouldn't give. Nothing more than an inch. No. Not even an inch. Wrapped tight around her, squeezing against her ribcage, it creaked and squeaked every time she moved – tried to move- , every time she breathed –tried to breathe-, she couldn't think.

Couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She did what she could. She opened and closed her eyes. That was all she could do, but she was too fucking scared to stop looking. She had to see everything. If she stopped looking she would lose everything. All there was was the light and the darkness around it.

Black and white. No gray. Shame ran through her.

One light was hanging over her, blinding her. She knew where she was. Everything was blurry, but she knew it wasn't the light doing that, she tried to choke back that blurriness. _Fuck_, she couldn't. _Too weak._

She couldn't hear anything, but something in her head sounded tinny – like metal. And then that voice.

"I can't. Not Deb."

That voice. Weak and strong. She's heard it all her life. She wanted to scream. She wanted to run. She wanted to claw her way out of her transparent – invisible- prison wrapping her down to the table keeping her in place and ready for his knife. She wanted to kick and yell and bite for freedom. She wanted his arms around her and cuffed. Instead, she couldn't breathe. Couldn't move.

She did what she could: closed her eyes and opened them.

Her eyes opened and she was in her bed. Her bed back at home – home with Mom and Dad. Plastic still covered every inch of her, except her eyes. He was with her. Young and happy. But not happy. He wasn't that boy anymore – he was never that boy. That was a lie. She didn't want to think about it.

She did what she could.

Same house. His room. She was on the floor. She had had a bad dream. She had snuck in. He didn't know she was there but she knew he was and that was enough. But it really wasn't. Not anymore. She knew everything, but he didn't know anything. She couldn't breathe, but she could hear him breathing in his bed – nice, slow, sleeping, guiltless, breaths – jealousy ran through her.  
She _wouldn't_ breathe.

But she did what she could.

Her bed. Plastic still paralyzing her. She's only a couple years younger. Rudy's face is smiling down at her exactly how he used to. She wants to scream. She wants to reach for her gun. Squeeze the trigger. She couldn't. She hears the bang, though. A phantom pain in her side comes back. She would scream if she could breathe when she sees the blood pooling widely under her plastic. _Her_ plastic. Rudy's smile never changes.

Not until she does what she could.

Still in that bed. But his smile, his face, his body, is replaced by his brother's: _her_ brother's. Her plastic is gone, but the fear and shame crush her – pin her down.

She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. But she didn't blink.

Not until the blood which had pooled around her wound turned black and covered her hands could she move them – could she touch him. _Black fucking blood_. Only then was she immune to him – only then could she see the black become gray in how it would smear across his skin wherever she touched him. Wherever he touched her it was the same. She knew it would stain – it would never wash off. She couldn't stop.

"_Now you see…. Everything isn't always so black and white."_

He smiled down at her.

The fear wasn't enough to wake her up until she felt herself smile back at him.

…

Now awake, on her couch, she didn't move. Her body felt too heavy. Her breath was shallower than an inch's worth. She could feel him in the next room, she could almost hear him breathing – so slowly, so deeply.

She matched her breaths to his; feeling better for it.

She did what she could.


	2. Changes

**A/N: Just Dexter POV-ish drabble about changes in perspective, takes place sometime between/within 7.02 and 7.03.**

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_ ... _

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_I've always known what I am. _

_By day, a loving father and caring brother, by night, a monster that hunts his own kind._

_This is who I am, this Jekyll and Hyde, this monster with an on-off switch._

_Who I _was_._

Something familiar and dark inside him bristled at that correction.

_But why do I feel, every time Deb looks at me, like I'm still a lie?_

He shrugged down in front of his desk, peeking out from under his furrowed brow, checking on his new rehab sponsor, old-time boss, and older-time sister. Lately, the way she'd been glancing and staring has made him feel more and more like an animal in a cage. Locked in the perfect cage she'd made for him, one no one else could have made better. Like any animal he felt a need to pace, to wander in circles, and, on a safe occasion, check for weak points.

Her eyes found his through the blinds, as they almost always did now. Without thinking he gave her his trademark nod and friendly smile – his 'On' switch had been flicked before he could stop it. The wary look she'd been giving him evolved into one of true discomfort before she looked away, continuing her conversation with one of the crew he'd never expended much effort to get to know beyond the polite exchanges while on his occasional donut rounds; another 'On' function of his.

He leaned back in his seat, sighing deeply and rubbing his neck. Deb had always been at the center of his world, the one world he didn't kill people in. But now, after what happened, she was something else – he was something else. She wasn't just part of one world anymore; she'd seen his Hyde.

He knew now that he was more than just a monster with a switch; he'd been a brother with one as well.

'On', for Deb and everyone else who knew him as the lab-geek extraordinaire 'Dexter', and 'Off' for those not-so-lucky few who'd reserved a spot on his table… or for the rarer few who he had trusted. More faces than he was comfortable admitting came to mind, as well as their various ends which were by his own hands a majority of the time.

Deb, whether he wanted it or not, was now one of those faces. Whether he trusted her or not, she knew.

But that left him in a place he'd never felt before, a new limbo he didn't know. Deb had been the one person he'd believed should never see him for what he was. More than the safety of himself or others he wanted her to never know him the way those rare few had. He had always been 'On' for her and her especially. Now that she knew both sides of him he had lost all footing of what he was or should be to her.

What _does_ he do around her? Being the Dexter she always knew would be a lie she'd see through in a second, as evident by the chill his smile had just given her, but he couldn't be the monster with her either or she'd get more than a little chill. He'd never been outside the black and white with Deb.

He found himself staring at her again.

_What am I to her now?_

_A brother?_

_A killer?_

_Am I both?_

His eyes drifted down to the paperwork he hadn't been doing for about an hour. He remembered Deb as the way she was; longer hair, braces, unafraid of happiness, and the one person he could imagine 'caring' for. Time had changed everything but that last part. But that was the Deb who didn't look at him the way she just had, the Deb he trusted knew only half of him, the Deb who trusted him. _She'll never be that girl again, Dex, _Harry explained quietly.

His expression hardened when he realized that much in the same way he'd become a stranger to her, so had she to him. Her place in his world was lost now that she was in both.

_What is she to me now?_

_A sister?_

_A prison guard?_

_Or the one to finally put me behind un-metaphorical bars?_

He looked up again, she was reading files at her desk, something obviously bothering her – Deb, for being as normal as she was, had never mastered camouflage like he had. Several minutes passed before she looked up just as he looked away. If it hadn't had been Deb in this situation he would have appreciated the irony in the fact that he had ended up watching her more than she'd been watching him.

Everything had always been so black and white with Deb. But that was changing….


End file.
